Today, many installations and products in industry and research are faced with high demands as to their tightness. With specimens or assemblies produced in cryogenic, automobile and other industries, frequent use is made of a sniffer leak detection. This implies that a test gas, preferably under high pressure, is present in the object to be examined. Frequently, the test gas used is helium which is introduced into the cavities to be tested for leaks before these cavities are closed. It is also known to use as test gases those gases already present in the test objects, e.g. Sf6 or halogen gases in the cryogenic industry.
The specimen to be examined for leaks is scanned using a hand-held device with a sniffer tip. The sniffer tip receives the test gas flowing from a possibly existing leak and directs it to a test gas detector. Together with other components, the latter may be situated in a base device that is communicated with the sniffer probe through a flexible sniffer conduit. When the test gas detector is sufficiently small in size, e.g. an infrared gas analyzer, it may also be situated in the hand-held device itself, thereby reducing the response time.
Leak detectors comprising a hand-held device can lead to erroneous measurements if the hand-held device is operated incorrectly. Thus, an unsteady guiding of the hand-held device caused by a lack of concentration might result in “nothing being measured”, the test object being rated as good, i.e. tight. The same is true when the measurement is initiated at an inappropriate distance of the sniffer probe from the test object.
WO 03/008923 A2 describes a sniffer leak detector comprising a hand-held device with an acceleration sensor accommodated therein. The acceleration sensor serves to suppress signals disturbed by movements of the hand piece.